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Why isn't Phil Hendrie

one of our top comic minds that we revere in this country?

If I had to pick my comedy heroes, yeah, he'd be on there.

You know, Python, you know, the Mel Brooks movies,

the early Woody Allen movies, and Phil Hendrie.

One of the few people that you can actually call a genius.

As a comedy person, you're like,

"Yeah, I'm nowhere near that. I don't know how that even happens."

The day that 9/11 happened, I said to him,

"Let's go play miniature golf. Let's go."

And we went out. I shot a 36, which is very good.

That's, like, two strokes-- Miniature golf,

that's two strokes a hole, right? That is exactly right.

And the reason why I did that is to show

I'm not going to let the terrorists win.

So as soon as those towers went down, I said, "Okay, let's go up to Golf N' Stuff."

It's a little thing that they got going on right now

with a lot of the Arabs at, uh-- and you and the lady I'm sure have heard about it--

it's a little deal called "jihad."

Now, what they do is they feel it's okay to go out

and burn down your house, your carport, or whatever.

I had a guy over here in Lumley,

which is right over here to the oyster-- where they do the oysters.

He had his whole carport burned down.

Was that by a-- by a Muslim?

I don't know.

What do you mean, you don't know?

It's got nothing to do with anything.

We're talking with Jay Santos of the Citizen--

Yeah, you were talking about cats grabbing--

wrapping themselves around someone's leg, right?

Yes, sir. That was what they were saying, that the one--

Well, this cat came off the fence,

and I was in the backyard, and I was doing some work

on some screens that we were having cleaned.

The cat came off the fence and attached itself to my--

literally to my face, to my head.

And the animal was-- was spread across my face.

I thought for sure I was gonna have my eyes clawed out,

and then I realized what was happening.

I was being teabagged by a cat in front of my dau--

What do you mean, you were teabagged by--

I'm telling you, the cat had its legs right across the nasal area,

and I-- I was getting a full teabag from a neighborhood alley cat.

What he does is one of the few things in comedy that I can say is magic.

Yeah, I don't wanna be friends with anyone that doesn't like Phil Hendrie.

He's juggling four chainsaws and a zebra,

and he has no script.

I-- I don't know how he does it.

I think, you know, people in comedy respect him because

we listen to it and we know how impossible a feat it is.

I decided, after 17 years of being a disc jockey,

I decided really what I wanted to do was comedy,

and I didn't wanna play records, and the records that I was playing sucked,

and somebody was telling me to play 'em anyway.

They weren't even what I would choose to play,

so my career was kind of, like, stalled.

Got Tom Petty & the Heartbreakers and "Breakdown."

97.1 KLSX with classic rock for Southern California.

That's a great sing-along song when Tom's in concert.

And I had Billy Joel with "Still Rock and Roll to Me."

And I'm Phil Hendrie with you this payday in LA.

I realized that I had to do something with it,

and talk radio had been reinvigorated by Rush Limbaugh's success.

I heard Rush, I heard him doing a lot of comedic turns.

He was doing a lot of production.

And I thought, "That's where I can go, man,

'cause they're allowing you to do shtick now. They're expanding the format."

Oh, yeah!

WABC, News Talk Radio 770.

Rush Limbaugh serving humanity, executing everything I am supposed to do,

because I am one of the best talk show hosts in the world, flawlessly.

It was a renaissance of radio back in the late eighties and early nineties,

when lots and lots of cats that I knew were leaving music radio

and getting into talk radio and--

and just busting out creatively. Doing satire, doing comedy,

doing serious talk, talking about everything.

You know, you can call me crazy,

but I believe I lived another life a long, long time ago.

I was a private eye. Chain-smokin' Chesterfield.

...45 under my armpit. They called me Big Dick Brannigan.

No money was too dirty.

No case was too sleazy...

for BDB.

Rain? Good afternoon.

- Aww. - Maybe a little bit of snow.

- Have mercy! - That'll get ya!

- Have mercy, your holiness. - This is God on DC 101.

Have mercy on my soul.

Howard Stern needs you.

He needs you to tell a friend about the show.

And gradually it narrowed.

So all this-- Like, a big, big, giant circus came to town,

and all of the really entertaining people got, you know, died off or fired,

and they were left with just fire-breathers.

You a sodomite? Yes, I am.

Oh, you're one of the sodomites. You should only get AIDS and die, ya pig.

How's that? Oh!

Why don't you see if you can sue me, you pig?

I'm gonna tell you something, Bill. I resent you selectively misrepresenting

the things that I say on the show, because, Bill, you listen every day.

In spite of the fact you think I'm a hatemonger and I'm a hate radio host,

you listen every single day. Why?

The reason why I listen to you, Sean, is because

I need to be aware of what the hatemongers such as yourself are saying.

Well, why do they listen to talk radio? Because they wanna listen to the issues of the day

and they wanna hear opinions, and, uh, who knows?

Maybe they wanna go to sleep. Maybe they wanna take a nap,

and it's the best way to put themselves to sleep.

Then along comes Phil at ten o'clock at night

or whenever, nine o'clock at night,

and now they're listening to this guy fuckin' with all of that.

And really, the reason why I had a hard time throughout my tenure in talk radio

is because we were satirizing talk radio.

We were making fun of the very medium that I was working in.

I remember when Phil Hendrie was just a regular talk show host,

where he's just working here and was just doing general talk.

Very deep, dark, depressing talk.

He was doing a traditional-- or what he thought was a traditional talk show.

Doing a monologue, taking calls, being angry, pounding the desk.

I'd done a really shitty talk show for him on the weekends

before I left and went to KVEN.

It was okay, but wasn't great.

Uh, and I think we ended up firing him, actually.

And then he went off and totally reinvented himself.

So I sent my tapes everywhere, and I got hired here in Ventura at KVEN,

a little-- I don't know how many watts during the day.

Maybe 1,500.

And hardly any reach at all at night.

And I got hired to do a 1:00 to 4:00 in the afternoon show,

and that's where Raj Fahneen was created.

Right at the beginning of the Gulf War in 1990, I was there.

I got hired there in August of '90 when we had Operation Desert Shield.

I came up with the name Raj Fahneen.

Is that a real name? I don't know.

You know, is that a real surname in the Arabic language? I don't know.

But, you know, and from that point forward, it just-- it was easy to do.

So they were banging the phones off the wall,

and nobody had ever heard anybody do what I was planning on doing, you know?

So I came on, you know...

This is Raj Fahneen and KVEN.

I want to thank Phil Hendrie, but, you know, I understand

the passions of the people, but my president, Saddam Hussein...

I started laying all this shit on people,

and they started calling.

I went, "Well, this is great," you know?

But let me say to the caller this...

First of all, you're a woman, and the fact that

you took so much time making your point offends me.

Questions like this would get you slapped in the face in Iraq.

But I'm not in Iraq. Iran, wherever I'm from.

These guys aren't real! This is bullshit!

This guy-- this guy's a genius! Oh, my God!

I'm a radio guy. Listen to me,

I'm listening to this guy, and I go, "How are you--"

'Cause every time I turned it on,

Phil Hendrie would have a killer guest.

I think I just stumbled on it, and didn't even understand what it was for a while.

I just thought it was a funny show.

And I don't even remember when I figured out that it was all him.

I-- It may have slowly evolved.

I may have been one of the rubes who didn't get it for a while.

I was instantly entertained, still, by his hosting job of,

"Well, now wait a minute. Let's--"

You know, it was the right level of, like, empathy, outrage.

Let everyone be heard.

For argument's sake, I'm gonna go with you on this, okay?

That you can extract Jesus's DNA from the Shroud of Turin.

Now, just for argument's sake, okay?

I'm asking you, are you qualified?

I instantly like that personality.

And then like everyone who's duped

before they know the secret,

I was,

as intended,

annoyed, outraged, pissed, confused,

laughing at the guest, and the--

and started to say, "Wait a minute.

What's going on here?"

I think the first time I heard him,

I didn't know it was a put-on.

I was like, "What? What is going on here?

This is the craziest radio show I've ever heard."

And I got hooked on Phil Hendrie.

But I didn't catch on to Phil Hendrie

for probably a couple of weeks.

He always played a really terrible person,

and then the caller would call in

and get mad at the character he's been playing,

and then Phil would always side with the caller to kinda rev them up.

But the caller rarely was wrong.

The caller was kinda-- We're on the side of the caller and Phil,

and it's always, you know, Bobbie Dooley or Herb Sewell or whoever it was

who was kind of-- like, had their back against the wall

and was arguing whatever their insane points were.

Never, ever entered my mind that it was the same person.

Like, I just-- Once I realized like,

this is-- this is too good to be real.

But I just assumed it was a cast of people.

So all of his characters have historical context.

The way he can get into women's issues...

"As a mother, Phil..."

Like, what do you know about being a mother?

And the way he keeps all of it believable and contextual,

I think is-- it's fairly astounding.

Let me explain something to you.

A fetus is not a human being. It's like-- I don't know, it's like a canned ham.

In other words... If that makes-- You know what, honey?

If that makes you feel better about what you've done, then that's wonderful.

But I will tell you right now that I would-- A canned--

I would never in a million years. A canned ham.

The people who were his characters could get away

with saying all kinds of things that he, the talk show host--

responsible for the station's frequency, responsible for that segment of the programming--

he couldn't say those things. But, you know, some guy,

Raj Fahneen, he could say anything he wants.

He's not employed by the station.

I could say all kinds of outrageous shit.

You know, and I think, you know, if you want to put Saddam's face on toilet paper,

maybe I want to put George Bush face on toilet paper.

What would you think of that? If I reach back and I wipe.

He's not, you know, responsible to the advertisers.

And so using these people,

he could be anybody, say anything, do anything.

And it wasn't him. It was these people.

It just feels like people that he somehow knew from his life. You know?

Like, these were all people that bothered him in some way.

And I always imagined, like, you know, Phil Hendrie met a Margaret Grey or something

and was driving home, and this woman just drove him nuts.

Well, there are all kinds of gods, Jenny.

There's, for instance, the God that says it's all right to have an abortion.

There's the god--- What god is that?

And are you a Christian, Mr. Hendrie?

I'm just-- I'm asking you where-- what God are you talking about?

How about the god of my marriage, Frank? My husband.

Who you just said you'd kill your son if he told you to!

Of course, because Frank is my Lord and master.

He-- If you look at your Bible, Jenny,

it'll tell you in Corinthians, "The man is the head of the household."

You know what? You know, maybe... Frank--

...like, 2,000 years ago-- Frank is only Frank.

He had the disadvantage and the brilliance of creating

not just people you've never heard of, but...

people that you instantly, by design, hate.

You wanna set Bobbie Dooley on fire.

And I heard this woman calling into a talk show.

It's probably KABC, 'cause I-- I get really inspired

driving to work and listening to what was on other talk stations.

And this woman was talking about how,

"My husband believes that if..." and "My husband believes,

LA City, there's too much crime."

And, you know, "The Blacks, the Blacks.

That's what my husband believes."

Well, that voice was...

I knew that voice, and I went into this thing,

and I started talking to myself as I was driving.

I realized she's sort of a psychopath, little bit.

But what you're not understanding, Phil,

is Lois had been running her air conditioner for three weeks.

That violates the CC&Rs.

It starts...

unbelievably believable.

Like, "Okay, that could happen."

Steve went over, he padlocked that breaker box,

and that allowed all the rest of us

to finally enjoy Western Estates

the way it's supposed to be enjoyed,

with a quiet-- with a very easy and country feel.

We have a very country feel here.

But then he starts ratcheting it up.

I didn't intentionally kill anyone.

We told her to turn her air conditioner off.

She didn't do it. We went over, we padlocked the box.

And an old lady dies suffering in the heat... So you could have sex.

...while you and Steve are-- We were together.

Now, Steve had gone over there, and Steve made love to me that night like never before.

When a third person calls in and is furious at the first one,

the puppet master has complete control.

I didn't murder anybody. We went over

and padlocked that breaker box because she wanted to die.

Murder! She wanted to die.

She wanted to die now? Now you're deciding that she wanted to die.

If you check your local television,

they will tell you, "Check on your senior citizens in the heat.

Make sure they are well and cared for!"

We did. You sent her to her grave!

So much for your care. I'm glad I don't live in your community!

She sent herself to her grave by insisting on breaking the CC&Rs.

She should've known it meant death.

Oh, now it means death. You murdered the woman.

And the way he lands these things, it's like a man

able to tame a bronco bull at one of those rodeos.

Like, how'd you do that? Why are you still on the back of that thing?

It's amazing how he's able to kind of keep it steady

when everything around him is, A, totally improvised,

changing second-to-second,

and the only-- and with a live and unpredictable caller.

How'd he do that? I don't know.

And keeping people on the phone by just moving up

until it becomes so ridiculous that you can't believe

anybody is still buying into it. And they do!

And how come nobody ever catches on? Nobody!

He was announcing before the start of every show,

you know, "All the characters are Phil and all of the thing--"

You could've flown a plane over the houses of these callers going,

"The person you hear on the air is a complete fabrication."

They wouldn't have believed it. They believed what they were hearing.

Which is one of the pure joys of radio, actually.

Tom Fran.

Got a new crash being reported

on the northbound side of the Five...

The fact that his show is a satire

really separates the audience, right?

Because there's people that get it and people that don't get it.

And some people will never get it. They'll never catch on.

I don't even know if there was a legal component of, like,

tricking people into thinking they're talking to someone who's not real

and humiliating people on the air.

...me getting seat covers for my wife!

You go to hell, you God[bleep] ugly pig!

Me? You shut your mouth.

I'm not talking to you. You stupid[bleep].

I'm talking to Phil Hendrie, not to you.

You can go to hell. You're not worth anything.

Yes, Sylvia, it's-- You moron!

I'm right here, Sylvia. It's Phil Hendrie.

Tell that guy to shut his mouth! I'm not talking to him.

He's garbage to me. Go ahead, dear.

Each time I hear his voice, I wanna regurgitate.

Go ahead, dear. I want--

What is all that noise?

What's he doing now? They're hammering-- in his office next door.

They should hammer his God[bleep] head!

He's the worst animal

I've ever heard on radio. Well, I'm very sorry.

I wish to hell he'd get his head broken!

What? I didn't hear you, Sylvia. Say that again.

I said, if I had a...

...I'd take a baseball bat and take his head off!

And that's what happened, man.

All of a sudden, they hear this nut doing all these voices,

and I think it was-- they were getting a lot of good feedback,

but they're also getting a lot of complaints.

The owner of the station would walk by the studio

and I'd see the veins in his head sticking out, you know,

and he didn't know what to think.

There was less pressure here in Ventura.

There was more of an opportunity

for me to develop what I was doing,

so I stayed here.

And KVEN let me do it, because,

"Well, wow, do we fire this guy who's doing this crazy shit that people seem to like,

or do we keep him here and we absorb all the abuse we're getting

from the people who don't like it?" So...

They walked that line for about a year and a half.

I did the Raj Fahneen. I developed the Margaret Gray character there.

I developed the Bud Dickman character,

whose actual name was Dave Del Wiggin when I created him here in Ventura.

I created Art Griego here, although his name was Ed Woosney

and he'd been taken hostage by the Iraqis and tortured horribly,

and it turned out what he considered torture

was that the Iraqis didn't honor his American Express card.

And I was there for... oh, God, I don't know how long, you know.

And I've flown for 26 years.

I'm a former commercial pilot. I own a private plane now.

And the plain fact is flying is a very nerve-wracking thing,

and I think of anything any pilot goes through,

uh, whether he crashes or he doesn't crash,

is it's nerve-wracking.

It's about as nerve-wracking for a--

as nerve-wracking as it is for a passenger, it's doubly so for pilot.

Pilots are great. I never knew this, but pilots are a marvelous caller base.

All you gotta do is go...

"Oh, I can tell ya, Phil, right now,

if you're flying at about 25,000 feet,

uh, you're scared to death. You don't know what's gonna happen."

Oh, I thought you're a professional pilot?

"Yeah. I've been flying for many years,

and you're scared to death every time I take off.

I have no idea how it's getting up in the air and all this shit."

You get up there, you try and keep your nerves calm,

but there are those moments when the reality of the situation kicks in

and that's what we call-- World War II pilots used to describe it as "gremlins."

I'm sorry, excuse me. Gremlins?

Gremlins. What we call "a gremlin on my mind."

Art was saying, "By the time we're ready to land,

you are just praying the plane isn't on fire."

You know?

Some guy calls... "I've never heard so much rubbish."

He's a British guy. "Right, the plane being on fire, my God!

I'd order you off my flight deck if you..." All this good shit.

"Well, I wouldn't be flying with you anyway. The foreign pilots..."

And it's very common for you to suddenly get up there

and experience a level of anxiety and fear

when you suddenly look out the window and realize what it is you're doing.

You're up in the air. There's nothing holding you up.

You're in an eight-ton tin can, and you-- you realize,

"I may be flying, but what's-- what's making me stay up in the air?" And you panic.

Well, if you think about that,

to a person who is not professional, it's kind of believable.

"You mean you don't really know?"

z[Art] "Oh, no, we've never really known.

We don't really know what makes flight."

But he somehow makes them all human enough that we're-- we buy it.

At the show's best, it was like eavesdropping on a phone conversation.

It wasn't like you were listening to a show.

You were eavesdropping on some insane...

thing that was going on.

We're talking with Jay Santos, who is a member of the Weather Warriors.

It's an organization of amateur meteorologists here in Southern California.

They start sounding reasonably normal.

So, you know, part of what Weather Warriors does is

we are ever mindful of the fact that since we don't really know where rain comes from,

not really, and we don't really know how much we're gonna get,

you have gotta be mindful of the dangers of rain.

His dialogue is kind of perfect.

You know, it's, that's the way everybody, those people talk.

Meteorologists, scientists sort of differed on this for a lot of years,

what causes rain, but we really don't know.

We don't have all the data that we need to tell us what causes something called "rain."

But after a while, you start to realize that

almost nobody is what you would conventionally call "normal."

Well, we do know there are a couple things associated with rain.

There is cloud cover.

We do know there are clouds when it rains.

We're pretty sure that it comes from the clouds,

although that has not been 100% proven.

Or he met, you know, Jay Santos and was like,

"This guy is such an idiot."

I think you can draw the conclusion

that there is an association between clouds and rain.

But what that is exactly, short and spontaneous collapsion,

which is the collapsing of the cloud that causes the rain to fall.

We know that rain is wet. It's moisture.

It drops from the air somewhere up there.

Where it's coming from has baffled scientists,

Phil, literally, for hundreds of years,

and I guess it'll continue to baffle us for another a hundred years or so.

There's a purity to the joke, you know, which I appreciate,

because I have such compassion for the person calling in who's getting worked up.

All right, let me get over to Valencia on KFI AM 640. Hello?

Hello. Yes.

Hi, yeah, I just wanted to say that, Mr. Santos,

as far as thunder and lightning, lightning is very simple.

Lightning is an electrical discharge in the atmosphere.

Thunder is a result of the lightning from the rapidly expanding atmosphere,

and that's all there is to it. That's one theory.

It's not a theory, it's--

No, that's one of many theories.

It's not one of many theories, it's just-- that's the way it is.

That's a theory. Absolutely not. Absolutely not.

We don't know for a fact--

Yes, we do know for a fact.

Except if you aren't in on the joke,

then you are simply-- Almost like a victim, really.

Sir, I'm a Weather Warrior. Okay?

Do you know what that is? I don't care what it is.

Well-- That has nothing to do with it.

All I'm telling you is that you're wrong.

If you don't care what a Weather Warrior is,

then you don't want information, you don't want education.

I'm educated enough to know what lightning and thunder is.

You know what it means? - I'm not addressing anything else.

Do you know what it means to be a Weather Warrior?

I don't care what it means to be a Weather Warrior.

T hen you'll never get to be one.

I guess not. Who wants to be?

Okay, that's it. You don't get to be one.

I split Ventura,

and I got to Atlanta.

And, um, that was in the spring of '92.

And from Ventura, he went to Atlanta, to our station in Atlanta,

where he was a terrible fit because it was an old fogey radio station,

and here he was doing his thing and nobody got it.

WSB Radio 750.

We put a lot in so you can get a lot out.

Said, "Okay, we're gonna give you this nighttime gig."

10:00 to 1:00, I think it was on. Or 10:00 to 2:00.

"It's all yours. You gotta answer your own phone calls.

You gotta pull your own commercials.

You gotta engineer your own show, man."

All those things I was doing in Atlanta

while there was-- well, you know, it felt like I had a gun to my head, you know?

Or I was-- I felt like I was, you know-- It's like being an accountant for the mafia.

You know, just making sure you don't fuck up.

But at the same time, trying things.

Always trying things, always trying new things.

It was Atlanta where I went and hosted--

every Saturday night was The Steve Wornell Show.

This was before he was Bosell, he was Wornell.

Every Saturday night it was Steve Wornell.

"I'm Steve Wornell, and welcome to WSB in Atlanta.

Let's talk about the Daytona 500, the greatest spectacle in racing."

I exist. Phil Hendrie's taking credit for somehow inventin' me.

I never heard of anything like that, okay?

Only person to take credit for that's my mother, right? My-- my daddy.

AM 750, WSB.

During the Rodney King events--

and that's probably what saved my ass,

because, again, Rodney King was in the news,

the LA riots had happened, and it was conversation all over the country.

And there I was, Phil Hendrie. I had just gotten to Atlanta from LA,

so I could talk about it.

I had characters that could do these crazy bits,

and I had ready-made phone calls from people.

I went to Atlanta. The character I did, it was a character I've never done since.

And his name was Hans Gyve. He was German,

and he was speaking that there must be order. There must be police.

This is-- You have these riots...

I'm in a city that is,

I think predominantly African-American,

especially the blue city of Atlanta,

with an African-American mayor,

and here I got this fuckin' quasi-Nazi, talking...

"There must be order, and these people, they are running around..."

You know, this shit. That was my first night on the air in Atlanta,

and yeah, you know, it--

Fuckin' rock and roll. And that was my instinct.

If you think about this, what's Phil's instinct?

I know! I'll get a Nazi. You know, a fuckin' Nazi.

How many places did he get fired from

when the boss found out what he had done to talk radio?

I got canned in Atlanta, man. Fuck!

Yeah, you can't help but take it personally. You--

um, you think that you're the first guy that's ever been fired.

You think you're the worst fuckin' talent in the world, you know?

There's an old saying that's very true. People say it about,

"When you're successful, you're waiting for that day

that people will come along and find out that you're a fraud."

Every successful person feels this on some level at some point.

"They're gonna find out about me.

They're gonna find out I'm not that good." You know?

Um... when you get fired,

you feel like,

"You're not talented, man. You ain't any good at all, man.

Who the fuck wants to hear your shit?" You know?

"You were just--"

You know, "They were doing you a favor."

And here you are now, you got canned, and you're thinking,

"How funny can you possibly be, man, if you're getting fired from these gigs?

Nobody thinks you're fuckin' funny."

And you go through all of those.

It's not rational, and you know it isn't, and you pull yourself out of it.

But the first-- yeah, I'd say the first 24 hours or 48 hours,

you know, you-- you're thinking all those thoughts.

I was really scared 'cause I didn't know what I was gonna do,

but I knew I wasn't gonna give up, I wasn't gonna quit.

And I just-- I remember sitting there one day and saying, "God damn it,

you know, I got too much talent for this bullshit to keep on happening.

I'm just gonna keep on pressing and keep on going."

And then he went to WCCO and this big CBS station in Minneapolis,

where, again, it was, like, an old fogey--

Think of Prairie Home Companion.

I was having to fit into environments that were heritage stations,

news talk stations, old-school announcers, old-school news people.

Nice people, a lot of 'em very good friends of mine. But, um...

"WCCO Minneapolis. The time..."

"...eight o'clock."

"CBS News with Charles Osgood." That was the environment.

Say, son, I just met the author that's gonna be on your show.

Yeah? - Interestin' book!

How to Create Airline Food at Home!

I thought I was for sure gonna get fired at Minneapolis,

'cause this was a CBS, oh-and-oh, real straitlaced company.

And I was shocked when they offered me another year on my deal.

I had just been to Miami talking to Bob Greene, who I'd worked for in Atlanta.

And he offered me a job outright at WIOD,

where one of the greatest talents in the world worked,

a guy named Neil Rogers. So this is major league.

Neil! - Yes, sir.

Here's some conversation you can really sink your teeth into.

- Okay, I'm sinking. - All right. I just got out of my car,

and before I got out of my car, I farted in the car.

And then it was, like, really hot out.

- Yeah. - And then I went out for, like, ten minutes

- and I came back. - And it was still there.

- Ahh! - Beautiful! Excellent!

Ah, so it's like, I got the window down a little bit.

- Mm-hmm. - And it's just going away now.

That's the champion fart, sir, is the one that lingers.

Like, for minutes and hours and weeks and months.

The one that just becomes, like, part of the woodwork. That's the best fart.

This was a big move for me, and I took the job. "Yeah, I'll take the job."

And I left Minnesota, and when we got to Miami,

then we started seeing these big box car numbers, man.

We had double digit-- We had, like, 15 shares in men.

You know? We had monster-- And this was the Miami Dolphin flagship station,

so to get a lot of men 25-54 was a massive, massive win.

I also learned an awful lot about the actual format from Neil,

who was hysterical. He didn't-- Neil didn't--

he wouldn't let anything get too serious.

915 On Zeta four.

Our next call is in beautiful Dade County,

land of the free and home of the grave. Hello?

I got a hotel on the beach in Miami, the Hilton.

And I was about ready to do my first weekend shift,

and I started-- I broke down and started fuckin' crying like a goddamn baby,

because I knew that if I didn't cut it with Neil Rogers,

he was gonna rip my ass on the air, and he was gonna make my life miserable

for the next however long I was gonna last.

So this is one thing, let me tell you right now.

Don and Mike, that opinion will never change. They blow. They suck.

When you turn on the radio, you hear the suction.

You think we're having another hurricane coming. That's how bad Don and Mike are.

I was on the air for three nights, and finally...

Andy Cal was my producer, and this was a big deal.

He said, "Did you hear Neil the other night, the other day?" I said no.

"He fuckin' loves you, man!" And he even taped it, you know?

Neil was on the air saying, you know, the show is funny, he liked my show,

and that was pretty much like the Pope.

If you don't listen to AM talk radio,

you probably don't know a controversial host named Phil Hendrie.

Famous for voice impersonations,

Hendrie not only interviews callers, he is a few of them,

fooling most of his listeners.

Phil Hendrie is a controversial talk show host

on WIOD radio. Seen here on home video

obtained by Eyewitness News,

Hendrie has been the focus of newspaper articles

touting his ability to create fictional people on his show.

I think that's patently unfair of you,

and I would demand an apology for that statement.

For having an opinion?

No, for saying that

this is the worst talk radio you've ever heard.

You know the influence that you have over people.

It's the worst talk radio I ever heard.

I demand an apology for that statement.

I will not give it to you.

Once in a while, he's gonna have to

interrupt someone like, "Hold on a minute,"

or someone's gonna get interrupted.

And how do you do that and not make it sound

like a guy stopped talking and then a guy started talking?

You have to interrupt

and shave a fraction of a syllable off,

but the word you interrupt with

has to kind of knock

the serifed top of that one letter of that font off.

Like, we're talking human analog,

in-the-moment, Pro Tools.

You wanna present it as realistically as you can,

so your speech pattern and your-- your cadence

and the rhythm of your speech all becomes

as-- as realistic as possible.

'Cause that was something I always wanted to adhere to.

And then if you're doing multiple characters,

that speech pattern, and that cadence,

and your adherence to that rhythm has to get--

has to flow into another voice. So, you have to interrupt,

and start, stop, take the breath at the right place.

Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait.

You talking about the people who put, like,

bandanas and sunglasses on their dogs and cats?

That's exactly what I'm saying.

They are more cruel to that animal

than anybody that burns one with a cigarette

or throws it out of a truck. I'll give you an example, Phil.

I got a very dear friend of mine who works here with the...

Well, wait, wait, wait.

I don't wanna interrupt you or anything.

Go ahead. I can answer any question you got.

You know, I've-- I've made a lifelong study of this,

a lifelong study of this.

He was able to develop a method of cutting himself off

mid-syllable, back and forth enough times,

so that your brain registers it as overlapping.

And what I don't understand, that it's embarrassing?

It is traumatic for the animal. All I'm saying is,

when you put a bandana on a dog or sunglasses on a cat,

the cat is no good to anyone anymore.

Only the-- only to the old lady that owns it.

And Phil Hendrie just can--

do it in a way that's, um...

It's a magic trick. I have no idea how he does it.

And I-- there are times where,

Alec Berg, who co-created Barry with me,

we will listen to Phil Hendrie in the office,

and we will sit there and you, we always say,

"I swear he's talking over himself."

I-- how? He's, he's not cutting himself off.

He's-- he's talking at the same time.

It's two people talking at the same time.

Now, one of the great players

of whites, I mean, he was nowhere near as good

as even the worst Black sax player, was Art Pepper. And Art--

Wait, wait, wait. Hold on for a minute.

What? - Art Pepper,

the worst Black guy on a saxophone

was better than Art Pepper.

Yes, because--

Even if the guy couldn't play a note.

Yes, because even the worst Black sax player

is listening to this music

and is playing it almost with a direct hotline

from God himself,

whereas a white guy has gotta go through an operator.

That's the best way that I can put it.

But I really-- all I ever wanted was for people to...

uh, like Phil Hendrie.

And when I started doing the kind of radio show I did,

it was a real gamble, because it was so fuckin' weird.

It was letting the world know what a weird-ass I was.

And how could that be anything but bad?

Because, you know, I always felt

all these weird comedic instincts I had

from the time I was a kid, were too off-the-wall

for anybody to really like.

David G. Hall, our Vice President of Syndication,

an exceptional guy, an accomplished guy,

a great career person, you know.

And uh... I don't know how to say-- what,

do I say that your sperm's available?

I don't know that I would wanna put it that way, uh...

That, uh... That you-- but women could get your sperm

or other exceptional guys' sperm?

Well, they could get-- yeah,

they could get my sperm if they wanted to use it

for whatever reason.

So, I kept a lid on that shit.

I mentioned I spent 17 years as a disc jockey,

and there's a reason for that.

I spent 17 years keeping a lid on who I was,

because nobody's gonna like who that is, man.

"You be a regular down-the-middle-of-the-road DJ,

the way you've heard all these other cats do it, Phil,

and you'll have success," which I didn't have.

I had nothing but, you know, frustration.

So... When I finally made the decision to be who I am,

it was, it was a big one. It was scary as fuck.

But I had no choice, you know? I had nowhere else I could go.

I remember that summer as being one

that I just was exuberant. You know?

I had left Los Angeles a disc jockey

who had no real career.

I went off to Ventura, I went to Atlanta,

I went to Minnesota, I went to Miami.

And now, in the summer of '96, I got offered a job.

I got offered a contract to go to KFI.

And that was...

I was-- I was just ecstatic, man.

It's maverick! It's outrageous.

I understood radio better than anyone.

I guess you never heard of a guy named Phil Hendrie.

I was the happiest son of a bitch in the history

of the goddamn planet when that happened, man.

Let's go to Jill. Jill, go ahead.

Oh my gosh. Mm-hmm.

Woman, you are such a hypocrite.

I'm a hypocrite? I heard you, would you shut up--

Yeah. Yeah. For five seconds and let me talk? Okay?

Absolutely, Jill, you're absolutely right.

I heard you-- How dare you?

I got to L.A., and I was on the air at KFI,

and I took a load of shit for the first six months.

I mean, I got more goddamn hate mail.

I got hate mail for-- from guys in, other guys in radio.

Yeah. I mean, that was crazy.

He came to KFI with some fanfare, and we--

he was put on at night,

because it's such a different show.

And it was a total escape for people to listen to.

In the ratings, there really are three parts to it.

How many people are listening,

how long they listen each time they tune in,

and how frequently they come back.

And what I found with Phil's show was,

the total number of people listening

was never really that great.

The engagement, though,

the amount of time they actually spent listening,

once they were in, and how frequently they come back,

were off the charts.

Nothing's easy, man.

And the job in L.A., just like in Miami,

I had to run a gauntlet of crazy listeners in Miami.

When I got to L.A., I had to run this gauntlet

of kind of staid, Midwestern-type listeners

who were used to a sort of... talk radio,

that their whole world was about to get rocked. You know?

Well, I had no idea I'd come in to work today

and be offered a TV show just like that.

And Mike tells me that your credentials are fairly solid

in the game show business.

Jim Sadler from J. Sadler Entertainment, and the show's called, Pitfall.

That's correct. Who else have you approached?

We haven't approached anyone. Right now,

we're talking to you, Phil, and we did wanna do it publicly,

because we really wanted people to know the concept of the show,

and to know that we want Phil Hendrie for this.

So, a blind guy goes around a stage,

and two-sided people, one lying, one telling the truth,

guide him to either the money

or to fall down the flight of stairs.

They each have their job.

One is to make him get the money,

the other is to make him fall down the flight of stairs.

Which person will we believe?

It's all coming up next, on...

And then the audience goes, " Pitfall!"

If we see enough dead bodies

laying on a freeway, we'll get used to it.

Well, I don't think we should ever get used to something like that.

Well, yeah, comparing a large woman on a billboard to a dead body.

No, I'm not, but I'm saying it's-- it can be. Can be.

Yeah. The typical Protestant response is to bring up Lucifer.

That's too simple-minded.

They say that Methodists are Baptists that can read.

These are a specialty of hens of Beverly Hills.

These are small, undersized chickens.

They've got the little, tiny drumsticks,

and the little tiny wings.

And you-- you just enjoy it, 'cause you can have as many as you want.

You don't get too full.

This is Good Friday. Exactly.

And you're talking about eating up on Jesus.

I'm just calling to inform you of what we believe.

You grubbing on Jesus, ain't you?

What? You can choose to believe that.

You're grubbing all over on Jesus.

And we were getting a lot of word of mouth,

and there was a lot of buzz,

and, um... and a lot of momentum,

and I started getting a lot of play.

And the L.A. Times did an interview with me,

and-- and this kind of shit.

Bobbie Dooley is on the line from her home in Western Estates.

Bobbie, is one of your kids the kids that are staying home?

At this time, yes.

All right. Well, some of the kids...

Does your boy do this? Has he--

He head-locked one of the sophomores,

and gave him a good-natured noogie.

The guest quickly shifts from outrage,

to outrageous.

These kids who are the dorks and the nerds,

and the ones that are bringing these guns to school

are the ones that should consider it an honor

to have themselves stuffed into a shopping cart or whatever.

If the guest sounds like she's reveling

in the ridiculous, she's meant to be,

for Bobbie Dooley and all the others exist

only in the voice and mind of this master of audio illusion.

Saturday Night Live, you know, John Mulaney and I,

one of our favorite characters was Herb Sewell,

and-- which is such a dark character, you know?

He shoved his wife out of a car in front of the kids,

on the-- on the freeway, killing her.

And his defense, if you remember, was,

he saw himself doing it. That was his thing.

He's like, "I saw myself doing it.

And when I shoved her out of that car,

her mouth was still moving about some house she saw

in La Cañada."

That's what he says.

My wife had great instincts.

She tucked herself into a ball.

I think she was-- I think it came out

that Herb's wife was a stunt woman, you know?

So she tucked herself into a ball, and was bouncing down the road.

And so, to say,

because I...

as you say, molested children.

Yes, I did.

I also was chemically castrated.

I endured beatings, isolation.

But, I've lived through a lot.

I mean, I've been the victim of jail rape.

I've had countless beatings,

months at a time in isolation cells.

I've had a lot of time to think.

And I sum it up in the final chapter of my book.

The chapter is called, almost whimsically, "Who Needs It?"

You know, who needs this? Ha, ha, ha, you know.

Who needs to be beaten and castrated like that?

But, and I some-- and I'd gotten involved

with a group in prison, ah, regrettably,

of white supremacists.

And one day, this Black trustee had brought me breakfast

while I was in the isolation block.

And I called him, ha, ha, ha, a word. Ha, ha.

And, you know, I don't wanna say which one it is.

Please don't. Okay, but I called him a rather nasty word.

And he used his fists, the tray, everything he could get his hands on,

and he beat me pretty thoroughly.

And of course, I didn't know at the time

that the man who had just beaten me was Preston Garner,

who was a very famous, murderous arsonist.

And I considered myself lucky to have survived that.

And that got me to thinking, maybe I need to take another look at my life.

"But I'm fully reformed.

I've done the circuit, as they say, and uh..."

I like when he goes, "When it comes to making mistakes,

I'm a-- uh, I'm a veritable Godzilla."

I never, ever created that character to be controversial.

I created that character because he was funny.

Now, I know it sounds weird,

but Herb Sewell was a funny guy.

And-- and first of all, I heard this voice,

and it was Neil Myers on Mutual Radio.

I love that man's voice.

"I'm Neil Myers, this is Mutual Radio." I love the voice.

And I wanted to do something with that voice.

And it naturally morphed as I thought about it.

And I talked, and I... "I'm Neil Myers."

And-- and he started to laugh a little bit, you know, too.

And-- and then it got a little William F. Buckley, you know,

"And, so, Mother."

And then naturally, it went criminal.

So, he goes,

"But I'm writing a book about consumer,

uh, habits, and so, the only--

but I need to watch consumers in a way

where they don't notice me.

So I'm-- I'm going to be um...

undercover as a Santa Claus."

The mall Santa Claus.

And immediately, people are calling in, like,

"Whoa, no, dude."

Like, what?

And Phil's like, "Wait a minute."

I feel like...

"You're writing a book about consumer reports."

But then he's like, "No dude, no, no, no, no, no, no, no."

And-- and it's terrible,

but it's really funny.

And the people calling in, you're on their side,

and they're right to be fuckin' angry.

'Cause this guy's a piece of shit,

and he should go down.

Um, but I was in--

So, it kind of came out that I was in Atascadero, and--

Well, that's a forensic hospital.

Yes, I know it's a forensic hospital. I had electroshock.

Well, what happened?

My God, I've gotta go through it again, don't I?

I was a bad boy.

And then it gets into like, the darkest shit.

You know, where this dude is-- is victimizing children.

Was I trying to be controversial? Fuck, no!

It just-- it got funny to me.

And I never saw,

and it-- did it seem like I would, you know,

did it seem like, oh, shit,

you're gonna get in some trouble with this, Phil.

Yeah, yeah. I'm not saying that I wasn't mindful of that.

Of course I was.

But...

I always believe, and I believe to this day,

that humor trumps all of that.

So if you can make it funny, people will forgive you.

I think Phil,

he rubs up against some controversial stuff.

But I think that is...

and I say this with a degree of caution,

I think it's the job of the comic

or the comedian to, quote, "Go there."

We want to euthanize Bob Hope

because we know that that's really what he wants,

and we want to do it so people can see

that there's nothing wrong with death with dignity.

All right, we're talking with Eric Hestor,

of an organization called, "Death With Dignity."

You're proposing that when people reach the age of 100,

that they be euthanized.

I'm proposing that, but our--

our desire right now is to euthanize Bob Hope,

because he is such a symbol

of what people can achieve in their lives.

And he's had such a great long life,

and he's lived long enough.

I'm sure he would agree with that.

I'm sure members of his family would agree with that.

And we-- I don't want to use the word selfish,

but I think that he has taken up enough of our time,

and to euthanize him in our garden walk

would be a tremendous, tremendous thing.

What would normally happen

is I would not look forward to going into work the next day,

because I would have to answer to the manager of the station

or somebody's attorney, or a thousand listeners

who would be, you know, calling me constantly

all day long to complain.

Callers would call up outraged,

saying that they were going to call the FCC

to put a stop to this.

Whether it was with advertisers or the staff,

or the management of the station and the company,

or, you know, with-- with listeners,

it was all damage control all the time.

And-- and as an aside, Mr. Hendrie,

I think it's important to understand that the human body

is, in a lot of ways,

I've said the human body's almost like a good, old-fashioned,

a good, old-fashioned bottle of Coca-Cola.

You can recycle so many parts of the human body.

And we are advocating as a Phase Two

of our "Death With Dignity," the reuse of--

of human tissue for a variety of things.

Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa.

What if I want my-- my relative buried?

No, if you want your relative buried, absolutely.

But we want to give people the option

to render parts of the human body.

You can make soap, you can make lampshade covers.

There are a number of things that can be done with the human body.

They were breathing down Phil's neck

for some of the things that he had going?

Oh yeah, yeah.

Do you know it as a fact or...

Oh yeah, no, he got in trouble. Phil definitely got in trouble,

but because not necessarily what he did,

is how it affected advertisers.

Yeah, there's no way the guy from Brand X

is gonna get this.

Yeah, we got some blowback,

we got some blowback from management that--

because they weren't used to it, and they didn't know.

And that's what I mean when I've said,

it quickly gained its cult status, and that helped us.

To be honest with you, when I started at KVEN,

I thought I'd be national in two years.

It took me like, six,

or nine.

It took me almost a full decade.

In the very rarefied air,

syndication is, of course, hugely profitable.

I'm talking about tens of millions of dollars a year.

I remember walking around in my backyard at my--

my big-ass house, near my swimming pool, saying,

"A lot of guys couldn't beat this game.

This is the radio game.

And a lot of guys got kicked off the road

and are in the ditch, but I made it, I actually made it.

Here I am, look at this.

I'm gonna be doing this for the rest of my life."

So, I think probably at his peak, I don't remember,

but I bet he had 400 or 500 affiliate stations,

or something like that,

which is a big number for syndication.

And so, 400 or 500 individual stations

each had to be pitched the show,

understand the show,

understand what Phil was doing,

know that they were gonna be on the hook,

as I had once been at KFI as his boss,

and as the Program Director,

to answer for the show to advertisers and to listeners.

Every one of them was gonna have to do that

in their own markets.

'Cause it wasn't supposed to be like this, man, you know?

It wasn't supposed to, uh...

go from really great, to really shitty.

It was really shitty-- You know, it's really shitty

when you're starting out, man, I get it.

It's not supposed to be shitty when you--

when you get to where you need to be.

It's not supposed to all of a sudden turn to shit,

but... that's what happened.

And with every station that the show would start on,

every, you know, next affiliate that it would have,

it would be brand-new to the audience in that city.

And so, the audience in that city

would see this as completely crazy.

I don't know why it is that, in life sometimes,

you know, you-- you...

You have this plan.

And then the plan, for whatever reason, doesn't work out,

even though you think you've got a really good plan.

The percentage of audience in that city that would know

and understand the show was zero at the start,

so everybody would call and complain.

Probably the funniest thing that happened during that period of time

was my ex, Maria, called me one day.

And she said, in all seriousness,

"I think we need to put you in a hospital or something

in a place where you can sit and just..."

I said, "In a nuthouse?"

"I-- I don't know, I'm just kind of thinking, yeah."

She wanted to put me in a nuthouse, man.

She was really serious.

She thought I belonged, like, you know, sitting at--

just looking at trees or something for a while.

A lot of stuff suddenly went south, man, real fast.

You know, my-- a marriage that I thought I was, you know,

I thought I was gonna be married for the rest of my life,

but we just couldn't make it, man.

And so, that was going to hell at the same time

as my radio career was starting to-- to slide.

So...

That was-- I guess it was just too much for me to deal with,

in terms of keeping my shit together,

and sort of being philosophical enough

to weather the storm, and press on with another gig.

I really did start to unravel.

I started getting-- I was angry.

I was fantasizing about kicking all kinds of asses,

you know, all over the world,

all kinds of people needed their ass kicked,

and Phil was gonna do it.

And I was bitter as shit, and full of hate

for the industry that I had given my professional life to.

All those things, man, go into making us who we are, you know? So...

When I was at Premier Radio, my--

a good man by the name of Kraig Kitchin,

I liked working for Kraig,

came back from Washington D.C. after Janet Jackson's breast

flipped out on national television.

Now, this wasn't a radio thing that happened, it was a TV thing.

But all of the radio executives ran back to Washington

to sit at the altar of the FCC,

to make sure they were not gonna get spanked.

And the FCC was telling them,

"We're gonna start fining you people."

And I remember saying to Kraig,

"Why are they coming down on radio? You guys didn't do anything."

"Yeah, well, you know, we have to clean our act up.

And because of that, Phil, we have to beep out this Ted--"

Ted's of Beverly Hills is a character I created,

who had a jingle, and the jingle went,

"We want to put our meat in your mouth."

♪ Here at Ted's ♪

♪ We wanna put our meat In your mouth ♪

♪ We wanna put our meat In your mouth ♪

He said, "You gotta beep, beep, beep that out, Phil."

I said, "You're kidding." He said, "No." All right.

So we beeped out, instead of,

"We wanna put our meat in your mouth,"

which is what most people would beep, we beeped out...

♪ We wanna put our meat in your[beep] ♪

And... That's worse!

Yeah, it's way worse.

But they let it go. You know.

So we had to do all of this subversive kind of bullshit.

And um... Until finally, there was no longer any market

for the Phil Hendrie kind of radio, you know?

This, this really crazy...

The screening that my show took,

just to be able to answer the phone calls,

to the producing that it took was a pretty intensive job,

and so finally, radio, talk radio,

the kind of radio that I was involved in,

personality-driven radio, just went away.

Non-music, non-sports,

personality-driven radio just went away.

"There's no purpose to be shepherding

all of these crazy people,

when all they're doing is driving advertisers away.

And we can get the same controversy with sports radio,

and we can sell the same airtime on a music show."

So, finally, I made the decision

to go to the digital platform,

and to basically jettison the whole phone-call

characters fooling callers thing,

and just went to a full character sketch kind of a show,

and found my way with that.

I just decided, fuck it.

If nobody...

If you didn't have to do anything,

what would you do, Phil? This is it.

I'd just make a bunch of fuckin' voices go crazy every day.

You know, I'm not gonna go out and do interviews.

Who wants to work, man? To me, this is not work.

It's just like, bah-bah-bah-bah-bah, you know.

Would the audience dig that?

I had no idea. I had my doubts.

I had my doubts, man.

I sense that you want something from me,

the room heats up, and I can-- it smells like you.

Most of the time, that's good.

Well, I mean, hopefully,

you'll just be doing battle with other Earth people.

If you're doing battle with other Earth people,

and we have a space force with dudes--

Think about it. Just think about it.

We've got a space force

with 11-year-old space mans that are six-foot-ten.

Quite honestly, I don't miss the call-in stuff at all,

and I really thought I would, 'cause I thought that is...

the most amazing radio I've ever heard.

But in my opinion,

Phil is probably doing some of his best work right now.

And we have a lot of good will out there

among a lot of people who like us.

And were promoting whatever it was I was doing, and still do.

Okay, this... See?

All this is near and dear to me.

So, the beautiful thing about The Phil Hendrie Show,

as you know,

is that it's an entire world, in and of itself.

We have bandanas, we have face masks.

This is the "Darque Hors" one.

So this is, specifically, Jeff Dowdder's band.

And then we have, of course, Steven Bozell,

who's always ready to sue anyone at the drop of a hat.

Western Estates, Bobbie Dooley.

"We're just a little bit better than you."

I think in a lot of ways his show has become better,

because he doesn't have to rely on having really good callers.

When you're nationally syndicated like that,

a big part of his show

was incumbent upon good callers calling in.

And he doesn't need that anymore, he creates his own callers.

It's almost like The Simpsons, where any situation could happen

on The Simpsons. That's what Phil Hendrie is.

Radio or podcasting is so solitary,

you can sit down at the mic and immediately start creating

what it is that you had floating around in your brain,

and then kind of go from there.

There's no other art form,

dare I call it that, where you can do that, I don't think.

We wear insane hats,

and we get into polka gear.

You think Polka is not too extreme?

You think it's just something that's very sedate and boring?

Let me tell you what, come to Jack Armstrong's Polka Time,

seven o'clock, right here, at The Phil Hendrie Show.

The podcast is a place where the-- it's like a laboratory for me.

I create a lot of things there. I discover a lot of things there.

You sounded as if you might have a little tiny bit--

maybe a half of a chromosome missing,

and one of those hillbilly grins.

In other words, I'm developmentally disabled.

Yes. All right. Fair enough. Although, it's very offensive.

Okay, so we're gonna get back to what?

Can I hang the phone up and get into the show?

For you to pull the plug on that,

I think it was very shortsighted, and I told the guy here, what's his name?

You forgot my name, huh? I'm sorry, David Hall.

I'm sorry, David. It's been a--

well, it hasn't really been a long day.

In fact, I didn't do anything today, I slept,

but uh, I just couldn't remember your name. Yeah, thanks.

Do you like the show when you hear it?

Yeah, I have to be honest with you.

This goofy-ass podcast that I do now,

cracks me up more than... Than the show?

Than my other show. Yeah, but that's just me.

Maybe it's 'cause I do this thing, primarily,

for my own sense of humor. I don't know what it is.

During my syndicated run in Los Angeles,

I was getting a lot of interest from people

who wanted to use me as a voiceover artist.

Right.

And even some people who wanted to put me on camera.

Huh? Do I look like a filthy animal to you?

Do I look like a filthy animal to you?

You know, a human being!

I had that as also a financial base, if you will.

And also a creative outlet. I had never considered--

I never considered doing anything other than radio.

And, um... I think in a lot of ways,

the radio show changing and turning the way it did,

was like life propelling me

in a direction I'm supposed to go in,

which is more performance-oriented,

and voiceover, on-camera.

I had put Phil in a pilot I did called North Hollywood.

You meet the big shots,

you make contacts and you network.

Phil Hendrie played Jason Siegel's dad,

who was rich,

and didn't understand why Jason wanted to be an actor.

And he was really hilarious,

not understanding an actor's career. And he keeps saying,

"You know, why can't you be more like the kid on TV? Uh, Leno."

You know what? Let's-- let's do it this way.

Who do you guys like? Who do you guys think are good actors?

Your mother and I, we like that Anthony Quinn.

Oh!

Uh, um...

Dan Rather. And the kid at night.

- Leno. Jay Leno. - Jay Leno.

- Oh! Talented. - Terrific. Terrific.

One of the things that make me sad about that show not going,

wasn't just that it was a chance to work with Amy Poehler,

Jason Siegel, Kevin Hart and January Jones,

you know, almost 20 years ago,

it was that I wanted to work with Phil.

But the first real time I was on camera

was I was a main character

in a pilot called, North Hollywood.

And I was working for Judd Apatow.

And I had Jason Siegel in the scene with me,

and there were-- Colin Hanks, I think, was in the scene.

It was a lot of heavy, great people, and I'm sitting there.

"Yeah, hi, uh, well..."

So I knew how to do the voices,

but I'm not sure what to do with this,

this thing called the body, you know?

So that was-- that was a-- something I needed to learn, man.

And I think where I am today is where I've always--

where I've always...

I think, where I was always intended to be.

When I created this show,

I was doing what I needed to do.

And I took it right to the-- to the end of the line, man.

There was no more going-- There was no more road left.

It's like the road ran out.

And so, now, and this has been ongoing for 10 years.

Now, I'm challenged again, man, you know, as a performer,

whether it's doing voiceover, whether it's on camera.

Come on, I said, eat it! Eat it!

Coach, I think I swallowed too much mud.

Take a salt tablet.

Hello, I'm Phil Hendrie,

and today, we'll be discussing

the man who created modern Christmas,

Charles Dickens.

Holy shit. - Yeah, man.

Uh, Mr. Meeseeks, was it?

Yeah, Gene Vagina. Listen, I'm in a bit

of a custody thing with my ex. I was wondering--

But I suppose, you know,

when I look back on my radio days,

I-- Walter Matthau said something in,

what was it? Plaza Suite.

The actor, the character that he played says,

She says, "Well, what do you want? You have it all."

He says, "I wanna do it all over again.

I want to do it again.

Not to do it again to do it better,

but just to do it again to experience it."

From the NYPD, to the Secret Service...

No one will ever be able to touch

what Phil Hendrie does, ever.

I've been in radio for 43 years,

and I've worked in music radio,

and I've worked in talk radio, I've worked in news.

And now, with my-- in my current thing,

I'm consulting radio stations all over the world.

So now I work with a lot of radio

that isn't even in the United States.

I've never seen anything like Phil Hendrie.

I've never seen anything even remotely close

to The Phil Hendrie Show.

This is a singular talent that doesn't exist

in captivity.

You gotta go pick through all of this garbage,

and all of this negativity, and all of this self-doubt.

And people talk about being the authentic person.

That's hard, man. And you know,

in art, they say as an actor or whoever,

you gotta be authentic.

I don't know that people know what that means, exactly.

What it means is, go ahead and show people

what your creative aspirations and instincts are,

unvarnished, and unfiltered.

Boy, does-- that's a scary thing to do. I don't care.

If somebody says they're not scared by that, they're not doing it right.

You know? So...

Thank you.

All right. That's amazing.

Uh, excuse me, I'm Phil's publicist.

Yes? The uh, this?

Frozen the whole time. No water.

You know? I'm sitting here. I'm trying to suck water out of the thing, no, I'm kidding.

Hello, Garry, are you there?

Hold on a minute. Let me punch the line and get him on here.

Garry, are you there? Hello.

Garry. Hi, Phil Hendrie. Oh, hi, Phil.

Garry, it's good of you to call the show,

and I understand you had an issue with something,

what this lady was talking about.

I don't know. I don't call into radio shows.

And I listen to you all the time, Phil.

I appreciate that.

The show is great. But I was listening today,

and this woman says I'm hosting something.

And I'm just not, and I was glad I was listening.

Usually, I don't call in to complain, but, gee whiz.

Garry, I talked to Pam in your office,

and she said you'd be happy to do it.

Pam or Laura. Pam or Laura?

I don't know any Pam or any Laura.

And I did not-- All right, so...

I just-- this always happens,

and I never do anything about it.

I called my agent like 10 minutes ago and said,

Am I hosting--

Please, Mr. Dooley, hold on.

Uh, Garry, are you saying to me

that you have no knowledge of this event

that Ms. Dooley has been saying you're gonna be at?

Was her husband saying he was a fan?

Are you a fan, Mr. Dooley? Is that it?

I love you, Garry.

Yeah, I appreciate that.

We love you very much, Garry.

Yeah, but there's some misunderstanding, 'cause I'm not hosting--

Mm-hmm.

Oh, I knew I shouldn't have called.

I knew this was gonna be...

You're not hosting--

I'm not hosting anything.

I don't know what the cause is, exactly.

It's not something I wanna get involved in.

If you can see my daughter, she's--

Hold on for a minute about your daughter, okay?

Uh... I'm embarrassed for you, sir.

Mr. Shandling. I'm, uh...

You were great in Spider-Man.

No, I wasn't in... Oh, for the love of--

I wanna know something, and I wanna be clear.

Are you telling me that after I talked to Laura or Kim,

and I can't remember her, is your agent's name, "Ron?"

No, I don't-- Goldstein?

I don't know my agent's name,

but I don't believe it's Ron. Goldfarb?

But you should... What is it? What is it?

Do you know his name?

What are you paying? Hold on.